Smile Communications’s Premium Unlimited data bundle has just been downgraded to almost snail slow speeds. When carrier initially rolled out its Premium Unlimited Internet Bundle in July this year, most of the heavy internet users jumped onto the bandwagon, not knowing what lied ahead. At UGX 330,000, Smile offered “Unlimited” data capped at 6 mbps. The 4G-LTE service provider later revised its premium Unlimited offering sighting “misuse” by the masses and capped the data in different stages, the least speeds being 2mbps when you cross the 200 GB threshold.
Now the story gets even worse for the so called premium users, because effective 1st December 2016, the dynamics of the FUP for the UnlimitedPremium bundle have been revised by the company. When one reaches 60 GB, they will be capped down to 4mbps, previously you would be capped down those speeds after reaching 200 GB. Nope, they are not yet even done, if you accumulate 100 GB and above, your speeds will be throttled to a mere 512 kbps a speed which is not even usable in this day and age.
Some of the premium customers this blog spoke to feel that Smile should just follow Vodafone’s footsteps and do away with the Unlimited bundles all together especially due to the fact that most of the issues are due to lack of capacity that causes network congestion especially during peak hours. Since, most of the carriers don’t want to invest more into their networks, they will resort to shortcut methods like charging the same amount for less value to their customers without investing more into the network.
Smile says that all existing and new UnlimitedPremium bundles that are activated/topped up before 30th November 2016 will not be affected by the new changes, as they will continue under the current Friendly User Policy (FUP) dynamics. Also, to encourage usage during off peak hours the carrier has says that any usage between Mid-night to 6AM does not contribute to your data usage/FUP. This means that if you have heavy files to download, you might have to wait until the wee-hours of the night.
Check out the old and new FUP for the UnlimitedPremium bundle below
| Original Data Cap | Original Speed Cap | New Data Cap | New Speed Cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1MB <40GB | Up to 6Mbps | 0 <60GB | Up to 6Mbps |
| >40GB <200GB | Up to 4Mbps | >60GB <100GB | Up to 4Mbps |
| >200GB | Up to 2Mbps | >100GB | Up to 0.256 Mbps |
Instant Article users refer to main site to view table
